1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to the field of electrical devices for joining conductors.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Solderless devices for joining electrical conductors are well known in the prior art. Earlier devices adapted to provide a splice connection between two bared conductors generally comprised a tapered ferrule seated within an insulated housing and adapted to be inserted over the conductors and twisted to provide mechanical engagement therebetween. Subsequent devices designed to eliminate the stripping operation generally involved slotted metallic plates having upstanding leg portions, each of the slots being arranged to receive a conductor placed therein crosswise of the plane of the plate. Such devices, however, require considerable care in use since the use of differently sized conductors in adjacent positions would cause undue deflection of the leg portions and a corresponding loss of electrical integrity between the plate and the conductor. A more recent device designed to at least partially alleviate this problem is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,892,460, issued to H. Izraeli on July 1, 1975 and assigned to the assignee of the instant invention. This device, although representing a material improvement over such other devices, is designed primarily for parallel rather than in-line splicing, and is further subject to some degree of distortion when employed in conjunction with conductors of widely varying sizes because of the common feature found in most prior art slotted plate contacts whereby an intermediate segment of the contact is acted on simultaneously by counteracting forces generated by the contained conductors. There is also a need for an in-line splice contact which may be advantageously employed to simultaneously interconnect a plurality of parallel conductors such as may be found in flat ribbon cable or the like.